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April 20th: Master Class by Christophe Jaggin (Switzerland) and the Opening Concert of the Festival in Baku Philharmonic

The Opening of the Sixth Festival of Contemporary Music was held last Monday on April 20th. It was preceded by a workshop of a Swiss guitarist, the leader of ensemble écoute Christoph Jaggin: he gave his Master class in the morning at the Qara Qarayev Central School of Arts. Students of the school got valuable advice from a leading European artist, who had the works for classical guitar of different eras, from the Baroque to the XXI century in his vast repertoire.




In the evening the M. Magomayev Azerbaijan State Philharmonic hosted the Opening concert of the Festival. The program comprised works by contemporary composers for voice and orchestra, performed by the Azerbaijan Uzeyir Hajibeyov State Symphonic Orchestra (artistic director and conductor Rauf Abdullayev) and five soloists from Russia and Azerbaijan. The Opening ceremony was preceded by a welcoming speech by the Deputy Minister of Culture of Azerbaijan Adalat Valiyev, addressed to the participants and guests of the Festival.

As a kind of prelude to the concert the Introduction of Qara Qarayev's ballet "Path of Thunder" (soloist Nadia Zelyankova) was performed. The name of one of the parts of Qara Qarayev's unfulfilled Symphony "Sad Night" preceded the concert as an epigraph. The next six compositions covered almost century-long history of European vocal music from the late 1920s until the second decade of the XXI century. Orchestral cantata Les espaces du sommeil ("Space of a Dream") by Witold Lutoslawski (1975), based on poems by a French surrealist poet Robert Desnos, was performed by a baritone Andrey Kaplanov. A Soloist of the Moscow "New Opera" theatre and the ensemble "Studio for New Music" Ekatherina Kichigina (soprano) presented an essay by Edison Denisov Chant d'automne ("Autumn Song", 1971), based on poems by Charles Baudelaire and recently wrote Cancion con movimiento by Vladislav Soifer (2014) based on poems by Federico García Lorca. Sergey Malinin (tenor) with the orchestra performed Requiem für Rikke by the Austrian composer Friedrich Cerha (1989), the text from the play by Carl Zuckmayer "Der Rattenfänger" being edited by the composer. The Chamber orchestral interlude in the program was the song Grammaire des rêves ("Grammar of Dreams") by a Finnish origin composer Kaija Saariaho for the female duo and instrumental ensemble (1988).

The program was crowned by a concert aria by Alban Berg Le Vin ("Wine", 1929), based on poems from the cycle "Flowers of Evil" by Charles Baudelaire: the expressive interpretation of the Baku opera soloist Farida Mamedova emphasized the successive continuity of new Viennese style with the achievements of post-romantic musical theater.










Prepared by Julia Dmitrioukova, Press Center of the Festival






















Pro Helvetia, Swiss Arts Council            Medeniyyet TV           YOL Magazine           'Muzikalnaya Zhizn' magazine, Moscow